


League Night

by GretaRama



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Bowling can also be sexy, Carlos and Cecil are Dorks, Carlos is Human, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Carlos talks about physics, Cecil Is Not Described, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil finds that sexy, Cecil is Human, Erotic bowling lesson roleplay?, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, M/M, Marching bands, No Tentacles, Oral Sex, The Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, Your headcanons are mostly safe, bowling, no really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 04:53:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3556778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretaRama/pseuds/GretaRama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It turns out Cecil is really good at bowling. Carlos finds this Sexy. As. Hell. I’m not sure how I ended up writing an erotic bowling story, but someone had to do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	League Night

**Author's Note:**

> _"This shirt,” Carlos plucked at the fabric of Cecil’s bowling shirt. “Is practically a sex object right now.”_
> 
>  
> 
> _“Like your lab coat,” Cecil murmured, letting his hands come to rest on Carlos’s hips._
> 
> _“If this is how you feel about my lab coat,” Carlos said, “I really don’t know how you showed as much restraint as you did. My god. The way you compensated for the angular velocity vector’s changes in direction as the ball was traveling due to the friction between the ball and the lane….” He ran his hands over the front of Cecil’s shirt, and felt nipples hardening under his light touch._
> 
> _Cecil’s voice took on a heady quality that Carlos knew well. “You know I - I can’t keep it together when you start talking about science,” he said breathlessly._
> 
> _Carlos leaned forward and whispered in Cecil’s ear, “When you took into account the uneven distribution of the ball’s mass, its rotational inertia, the coefficient of friction and the gravitational constant to pick up that spare in the tenth frame…I felt it right here.”_

“Who designed the shirts?” Carlos asked quietly while Cecil was changing his shoes.

“Larry Leroy,” Cecil replied. “He’s always been really good at appliqué. Why?”

Carlos smiled and touched Cecil’s shoulder with one finger. A heart-shaped patch with Cecil’s name embroidered across it was stitched into the shiny purple fabric. “You literally have a heart on your sleeve. It’s perfect.”

Cecil smiled and took Carlos’s hand in his, squeezing it gently. 

“Cecil? You ready? You’re the leadoff,” said Old Woman Josie. “Carlos, quit distracting him. This is the first league night we’ve had in months and the Desert Bluff Corpocrats are here,” She gestured with one tattooed arm in the direction of a four-person team in Desert Bluffs yellow and brown, each with a spill of scarlet down the front of their team shirts.

“We’re the Armadillos,” said one of the Desert Bluff players. “Not the corpocrats. And that’s not even a thing, by the way.”

“Not anymore,” Josie replied, fist-bumping one of the Erikas.

“Also, the Night Vale _Citizens_? That’s basically the stupidest name for a bowling team I’ve ever heard. Get an imagination.”

“Get something to cover up that gaping hole in your face,” another one of the Erikas suggested.

“And it’s the Citizens of Night Vale,” Cecil corrected mildly, as he lifted his ball from the rack and waited for the pinsetter to lift. "We wanted something accessible, yet intimidating."

Carlos leaned over to Josie. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here? I don’t want to cramp Cecil’s style.”

The old woman smiled and swigged from her beer. “You’re fine, honey. He was so excited that you wanted to come – he was just worried you might be a little…” She waved her hand in the direction of Lane 5.

“Oh, no,” Carlos said. “Actually I’ve been working with Teddy to see if we can devise some means of containment. But the tiny people don’t seem to be interfering with the bowling, so...I guess it’s safe.” He shrugged.

She patted his arm. “Well, I’m glad you made it. You’re in for a treat. Watch this – Cecil has such a beautiful approach.”

A hush fell over the room as Cecil stepped up to the platform.

Cecil took four steps, letting the ball drop down to his side on the second, swinging it back behind him on the third, and moving it forward on the fourth. The movement was graceful, but as Cecil stroked the ball down the lane, Carlos realized the fluidity of his motion disguised a tremendous amount of power and control. The ball described a tight arc along the right edge of the lane until it was only a few feet from the pins. It curved abruptly at the end of its trajectory, collided with the first three pins, and knocked the lane clear with a hollow, popping clatter.

Carlos had had no idea – not even the slightest inkling – that Cecil possessed any kind of athletic ability. Cecil was so sports-averse he had once asked his niece Janice about the outcome of her indoor soccer “conglomeration’s” latest “siege.” Cecil’s interest in bowling had seemed mainly social, and Carlos realized that he hadn’t expected Cecil to be very good at it. That he was more than good, possibly even excellent, was a revelation. Carlos’s breath caught in his throat as Cecil gave a little nod of satisfaction and strode back to the seating area.

Carlos belatedly started clapping.

“Close your mouth, honey,” Josie said kindly, patting Carlos on the shoulder.

“That was...that was really _good,_ right?”

“Cecil always is,” Josie said easily. “He’s the second best scorer, after me, and…well, let’s just say I benefit from a little divine intervention.”

“Nice strike, Cecil,” Steve Carlsberg said as Cecil returned to his seat. Cecil sighed in dramatic annoyance, rolling his eyes outrageously, and sat down to record his score.

“Was there really no one else available for our fourth spot?” Cecil asked Larry.

“Michelle said she only bowls ironically, and not with anyone over the age of 25. Leanne Hart only throws objects that can be hurled overhand. Sarah Sultan is a river cobble. Roger Singh is in some sort of dark existential suspension in his condo…” Larry ticked each of these unsuccessful recruits off on his fingers as he spoke.

“What about Megan Wallaby? I mean, she used to be a man’s wrist and hand. She would bring such an interesting perspective to the game. And her new body has a natural bowler’s physique!”

“Her parents didn’t want her out so late.”

“Ugh, fine, whatever. Your turn, _Steve._ ”

On the fifth frame, one of the players on the sheriff’s secret police team left a 5-7-10 split. Her face - or what Carlos could see of it behind her astrakhan bowling balaclava - fell as she turned and made her way dejectedly to the ball return. Carlos watched as Cecil took her aside, helped her select an appropriate ball, and walked her through her an approach that would give her the speed and rotation needed to pick up the spare. Although she didn’t pick up all three, she did get two.

The sight of Cecil, _his_ Cecil, guiding her through the correct motions, made him almost faint with desire. Cecil was totally circumspect with the other player, touching her in only two places, once on her elbow and once on her hand, and even then only after asking her permission. His attitude was entirely – and adorably, he couldn’t help but think – teacherly, completely without any sexual intent. Nonetheless, it was all too easy to imagine Cecil standing behind him in the same way, his breath tickling the back of Carlos’s neck as he whispered instructions into his ear. He shifted in his seat.

On the tenth frame, Cecil left two pins, one on each side of the back row. _Like bedposts_ , Carlos thought, and that notion quickly turned to even more prurient imaginings until he forced himself back into the moment. It went quiet again as everyone stopped what they were doing to watch Cecil. Even the noise of whatever was going on underneath the pin retrieval area of Lane 5 stopped for a moment.

Cecil selected a smaller ball, which he lifted to his chin as he contemplated the 7-10 split. Then he moved swiftly forward, hurled the ball down the alley in another tight, perfect curve, and caught the 10 pin on the outside. The pin flew to the left in a crazy end-over-end arc and took down the 7 pin. Carlos, who had been holding his breath, felt his insides fill with giddy helium as the silence broke with a roar. Even the players from Desert Bluffs were on their feet, clapping and whistling.

Carlos tallied the scores in his head and determined that the outcome of the competition was a foregone conclusion. This mathematical foreknowledge did not stop him from jumping up and down like a lunatic when the Citizens actually won, of course. Once Cecil had shaken hands with the other team captains, Carlos kissed him passionately, arms resting on his shoulders and one leg discreetly pressing between Cecil’s thighs. As they pulled apart, Carlos saw that Cecil’s eyes were so dilated the irises almost were almost black.

“Oh,” he gasped. “Carlos, that was - ”

“Get us out of here, Cecil. Now.”

* * *

The Night Vale High School Marching Band was playing when they got back to Cecil’s apartment. They were in the middle of a medley of 80’s power ballads, and Carlos recognized little segments of “Love Hurts” and “Headed for Heartbreak,” interspersed with lively interludes of brass-heavy bossa nova. It shouldn’t have worked, but like a lot of things in Night Vale, it did anyway.

“They’ve been so good ever since Destiny Marshall started high school,” Cecil was saying. “Everyone loves an electric guitar solo during a parade.”

Carlos wasn’t entirely clear on how an electric guitar could work while marching, but he knew better than to ask. Besides, he had other things on his mind. 

“Cecil, that was amazing,” he said. “ _You’re_ amazing. Why didn’t you tell me you were such an incredible bowler?”

Cecil smiled, looking a little bemused by Carlos’s obvious enthusiasm. “It’s just something I do for fun,” he said. “I guess it just never occurred to me that you would be interested.”

“Cecil, you just bowled a near-perfect game. You cannot convince me that you don’t know you’re really good at this. You’re like…you’re like the Serena Williams of bowling.” Carlos took hold of Cecil’s hands, met his eyes. “Watching you bowl,” he said, his voice low, “made me feel like a cheerleader dating the quarterback who just threw the winning touchdown at homecoming.”

“Okay,” Cecil said, smiling his pleased and guileless smile that clearly communicated he had no idea what any of that meant. Carlos decided it was time to demonstrate.

He held his Cecil’s face in both hands and pulled him close, “Watching someone who’s really good at something is incredibly hot,” he said, kissing Cecil lingeringly on the lips. “Apparently that’s true even if the thing is bowling. I…I actually feel a little conflicted about getting so turned on at a bowling alley. This shirt,” he plucked at the fabric of Cecil’s bowling shirt. “Is practically a sex object right now.”

“Like your lab coat,” Cecil murmured, letting his hands come to rest on Carlos’s hips.

“If this is how you feel about my lab coat,” Carlos said, “I really don’t know how you showed as much restraint as you did. My god. The way you compensated for the angular velocity vector’s changes in direction as the ball was travelling due to the friction between the ball and the lane….” He ran his hands over the front of Cecil’s shirt, and felt nipples hardening under his light touch.

Cecil’s voice took on a heady quality that Carlos knew well. “You know I - I can’t keep it together when you start talking about science,” he said breathlessly. 

Carlos leaned forward and whispered in Cecil’s ear, “When you took into account the uneven distribution of the ball’s mass, its rotational inertia, the coefficient of friction and the gravitational constant to pick up that spare in the tenth frame…I felt it right here.” He guided one of Cecil’s hands to his half-hard cock, and Cecil inhaled sharply. 

“Carlos…” he groaned. “I have no idea what that means, but please don’t stop.”

“You don’t even have to think about it,” Carlos continued, thrusting into Cecil’s caressing hand. “You just do it naturally. You just run first-order differential equations applying Newton’s second law to the bowling ball,” He slid his hands below the waistband of Cecil’s chinos, and smiled as Cecil gave an “Oh!” of surprise and pleasure. “The translational and rotational forms. All in your head.”

He kissed Cecil again, open-mouthed and delirious, and neither of them spoke for some time. Slowly, Carlos broke the kiss, breathing hard. “Watching you with that woman from the sheriff’s team…I was a little jealous. I wanted you to show me how to do what you were doing. I wanted you to…" he took a half step back, smiling. "Cecil, would you show me? I’ve been thinking about it all night.” 

Cecil lifted one eyebrow in surprise. "You want me to show you how to bowl? Right now?"

"Yes, please."

Cecil, plainly bemused, slowly turned Carlos in his arms and pulled him up flush against his body. He rested his hands on Carlos’s shoulders, leaned forward and said, “First you have to relax. Too much tension in your shoulders...just relax.” He kissed the nape of Carlos’s neck as Carlos let out a long slow breath, letting his shoulders drop. It was a little like what Cecil had done earlier that evening, showing the player from the Sheriff's Secret Police Team how to pick up the spare, and yet now, alone together in their apartment, it felt completely different in certain critical ways.

“Good,” Cecil’s voice was languid and the word lingered in the air. “Now, imagine you’re holding the ball in this hand. You start with the ball held up at shoulder level,” His hands guided Carlos’s arms to the correct position. 

“This technique,” Cecil said, “Is called a power stroke. It creates a powerful but controllable motion in the ball.” 

“Power stroke?” Carlos shot a sidelong look at Cecil. “You bowlers and your dirty talk.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Cecil said, his voice dark with sexual promise. In his lower registers, Cecil had a little bit of gravelly rumble to his voice that turned Carlos's knees all rubbery. “Power strokers, pure strokers, crankers, tweeners, UFOs…there are all kinds of techniques, but it’s all just a matter of getting the right degree of thrust, and speed, and spin.” He placed a slight emphasis on the words “thrust,” “speed,” and “spin.” 

Carlos closed his eyes and inhaled, his back teeth tingling. “Go on,” he said weakly. “What do we do next?”

In the distance, the marching band started a soulful instrumental cover of Extreme’s “More than Words.” 

Maintaining full body contact, Cecil stepped his left leg forward, carrying Carlos’s leg forward with it. “With the first step, you move the ball out away from your body,” he stepped his other leg forward. “Keep your hips square to the foul line,” he whispered, correcting the angle of Carlos’s hips with gentle fingertips, pulling Carlos’s ass back into his pelvis suggestively. “Stay right here,” he breathed. “Now you initiate the backswing and lean forward…” he suited actions to words. “Then – keep this elbow in close,” he added, pressing Carlos’s elbow down, “Let your body’s momentum carry the ball forward and release…right there. Thumb first, so your fingers can create the right kind of spin.”

Carlos looked at Cecil’s hand pressed to his, outstretched in front of them as they completed the imaginary throw, half crouched like speed skaters. He rose slowly, Cecil following with him as if they had temporarily occupied one body. Carlos's breath was coming hard, and his heart was pounding. “So the differential between the linear speed and the rotational speed creates the parabolic trajectory of the ball that allows you to hit the pins at an angle instead of head-on,” he murmured, turning to look at Cecil. Cecil stared back, eyes dark, cheeks flushed. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more turned on in my life,” Carlos said raggedly as he took hold of Cecil and moved him roughly up against the wall. He kissed him hard, goosebumps rising down his arms and back as Cecil moaned into his mouth. His touch drifted down Cecil’s arms, to his strong wrists and hands, pulling those hands around his hips and working on the buttons of Cecil’s shirt. “All night,” he muttered. “All fucking night, watching you do differential equations in your head without even knowing you were doing it.” He whipped Cecil’s belt out of its loops and cast it aside, started kissing his way along Cecil’s neck, collarbone, chest and belly. The shape and feel of his partner was familiar, and yet something about this particular encounter felt entirely new, as if they hadn’t been truly physically intimate until just now. Later, he promised himself, later he would struggle with what that meant, but right now...right now, he wanted his hands, his mind, and his mouth on Cecil.

“Amazing. Fucking amazing,” he continued, undoing Cecil’s zipper, tugging his chinos and boxers down from his hips and wrapping his hand around Cecil’s cock. Cecil sagged against the wall, making sounds of incoherent pleasure as Carlos dropped to his knees and took him into his mouth, hollowing his cheeks as he pulled away, teasing his tongue around the head of his cock. He _loved_ doing this, loved the noises Cecil made, loved the way he let his head bump back against the wall, the way he slid his fingers into his hair and tugged.

“Carlos,” Cecil breathed, caressing Carlos's side with one trembling knee. “Carlos – _ah_ – I th-think….it’s just…I don’t think I can…I c-can't keep standing up,” he panted.

Carlos reluctantly stopped what he was doing, swept Cecil up in his arms, not without some difficulty, and carried him into the bedroom, where he dropped him down on the bed and fell on top of him. “All night...wanted to fuck you so bad,” Carlos growled, tangling his legs with Cecil’s and grinding hard against him. Cecil’s head dropped backward onto the covers and he made a sound deep in his throat that made Carlos's whole body thrum with want. 

He quickly undid the fastening of his own trousers and kicked them off, rolling the two of them in the direction of the bedside table. He fumbled at the drawer until he found a small bottle of lube. Straddling Cecil, he warmed it in his hands, then smoothed some over Cecil, smiling as the contact made Cecil's cock jump in his hand, made his hips move. "Carlos," he moaned, and Carlos hastily applied the remainder to himself before he pressed his hips down and felt their cocks slide thrillingly against one another. He propped himself up on his forearms and started thrusting rhythmically, more or less in time with the 4/4 beat of “Do You Wanna Touch Me,” which was just audible through the bedroom window.

He was needy and hot, but he wanted this to last. Cecil was not making that easy - he was so gorgeous, with his face flushed and his hair tousled, his lips parted and _god_ the little whimpering sounds he made, it was almost too much. Carlos slipped his thumb into Cecil's mouth, and felt Cecil's tongue swirl around it right before he bit down gently. "Oh jesus _fuck_ ," Carlos breathed, feeling the rising tide of his orgasm everywhere in his body, his entire being sensitized by his almost desperate state of arousal. His nipples were so hard they hurt, his skin rippled with every little eddy of air that passed over him. He felt nerves he hadn’t even known he had tensing and thrumming, and the sounds of his and Cecil’s harsh breaths, torn from their throats with each delirious, thrilling glide of their bodies together, formed a crazed counterpoint to the music of the band outside. 

He wanted more, but he forced himself to pause so he could collect himself. Cecil’s eyes were half-lidded and he moaned softly as Carlos pulled away. Carlos gasped for breath until Cecil pulled him back down and kissed him, open-mouthed, their tongues sliding together as their bodies had done, and Cecil's body tightened as Carlos bit his lip, let his teeth graze his tongue. Carlos abandoned the whole notion of self-control in that moment, and he kissed Cecil with a passion that was almost ferocity before turning him roughly on his side and pressing up hard against his back.

Carlos had discovered many things that Cecil liked, had mapped a few of his less obvious erogenous zones. He nibbled Cecil’s earlobe, and whispered, smiling, “Thrust, speed, and spin, huh, sweetheart?” into Cecil’s ear as he let his hand tighten and slide down Cecil’s hard, throbbing cock. Cecil gasped and thrust hard into Carlos’s hand. “Do you like that?” Carlos whispered, making sure to let his increasingly harsh breaths skim over Cecil’s ear. “You’re killing me right now. I don’t want to come before you do,” he tongued gently down the arch of Cecil’s neck, blew a soft breath across his skin. 

They had flirted with the idea of penetration on a few occasions, but it wasn’t really necessary; the space between Cecil’s thighs was tight and slick and heavenly, and Carlos now slid into this narrow gap, sliding against Cecil’s testicles and perineum, eliciting a prolonged, breathy moan. He slid his hand over Cecil’s cock and fell back into the marching band's rhythm again. In his head, Carlos could hear Joan Jett’s throaty voice demanding _Do you wanna touch_ even as Cecil gasped in pleasure - _Do you wanna touch_ *moan* _Do you wanna touch_ "Oh Carlos, _Carlos_ " _me, yeah..._ Carlos bit down on Cecil's shoulder and Cecil reached back and clutched Carlos's hip, pushing back against his body, and it was so _good,_ ratcheting up the excruciatingly delicious sensation of coiling energy until he couldn't help himself, his hips pounded against Cecil's ass and he made desperate little noises of effort as he worked himself against the hot tight place over and over again even as his hand pumped up and down, his thumb stroking along Cecil's rigid cock. "Oh f-fuck oh fuckohfuckohfuck," he muttered under his breath as his withheld orgasm threatened to shake him apart. "Oh _god_ Cecil...!"

He felt the sudden pulse in his hand as Cecil finally came, beautifully, arching back against him, his gasps of delight finally toppling Carlos beyond his control. Carlos's own orgasm exploded along his nerves as if his body were filled with gunpowder, and he shuddered with the blissful ache of it, the sharp joy of release. They continued moving together, slowing gradually as the urgency dissipated, and they subsided into stillness, fitted neatly together, Carlos's knees in the soft place behind Cecil's, his lips still pressed to the tender spot where neck and shoulder met.

There was no other sound from the apartment for several minutes; they lay as they had fallen, stunned in the aftermath of their culmination. Carlos panted for breath, and let one hand move gently along Cecil's hip and side, soothing himself as well as his deliriously sated boyfriend, letting this gentleness balance the roughness of their lovemaking.

He had stopped hearing the band at some point, as all of his senses had narrowed their focus to the need for sexual gratification. Now, he became aware of the music again. They were playing a surprisingly touching rendition of Aerosmith's "Cryin'." “They really are good,” Carlos said eventually. 

“I know. Whoever is playing the accordion is just killing this,” Cecil observed, and Carlos laughed.

"Where did you learn to bowl like that?”

“College, but I know how you hate to talk about higher education,” Cecil said, rolling over to face him. 

“You really surprised me,” Carlos told him. “I had no idea. You and your hidden depths.”

Something in Cecil’s face changed. It was subtle, and it was something Carlos always took note of when it happened. The Cecil he knew was not quite the same glibly affable Cecil who was the Voice of Night Vale, nor the uncannily and wickedly subversive Cecil who occasionally emerged in response to some dire threat to the town. Cecil, his dear, damaged Cecil, had many faces, but the one he saw now was the rarest and most nakedly honest.

“Bowling is all about creating stability in an unstable environment,” he said. “It’s about negotiating a narrow strip of safety, traversing a path surrounded by absolute danger.” He pulled Carlos close, and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. “Is it really so difficult to believe that I’d be good at something like that?” 

For some reason, Carlos felt tears spring to his eyes and his throat went raw. He pushed closer to Cecil, wrapping his arms around his waist and hugging him tight. “No,” he said, as Destiny Marshall’s guitar howled into the night. “When you put it like that, it’s not a surprise at all.”


End file.
